Sunday TV and writing
Jun. 25th, 2018 06:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessOn Sunday, I posted Jugular. Gotham. Teen. Victor Zsasz, Selina Kyle, Sofia Falcone, Bruce Wayne. 250 words. Summary: Of the neck or throat. It’s another ficlet responding to an episode (4.11) – Gotham, what are you doing to me? – that required near immediate posting.
Agent of SHIELD 5.17 All Roads Lead...
Quite involving, this.
Could Ruby have been more obnoxious? I think my irritation with her from the start of the episode bled through into my response towards the end which was ‘assassinate her!’ It dialled down to ‘why didn’t you bring your night-night gun so you could tranq her now, talk her down later?’ And then I both respected Yo-Yo for killing the annoying little brat, but could see that doing it in front of Ruby’s mother and the way she’d handled it – Yo-Yo gets the award for being the most screwed up by her visit to the future, and Mack is entitled to an ‘I told you so’ because she wasn’t ready to go out into the field, and I say that as someone who loathes self-righteous!Mack – were clearly bad choices. She did, after all, use the weapons that cut her arms off, so that’s closer to revenge than anything. But I cry no tears for Ruby and her pretty boy, no, not even as she laid out her mommy issues and jealousy of Daisy. Aw, your plan to give yourself superpowers didn’t work out like you intended, well, look before you leap, you pouty little sadist.
Ahem.
The whole levitation and voices in her head spoke of horror movie possession tropes.
I wished Fitzsimmons could have found a third way, other than to do things S-L-O-W-L-Y, but if they couldn’t bear to lose each other, they couldn’t, although their knowing about the inevitably of the world crumbling then (see Robyn’s drawing) made it a bit tragic, and a bit exasperating of them.
Robyn and Polly’s plights were far more wrenching, if I’m honest. The second I realised Talbot was going to go after them, I was very worried for Polly, as we know she dies in the timeloop. But with Robyn so often being unable to move, watching scenes she’s seen before, it was awful to think of her seeing people die in front of her, and though this was averted – Polly lives! so does Talbot! – Daisy really, really couldn’t promise their safety and endangered them by pulling them out for clues about Coulson’s whereabouts.
So long as it wasn’t in front of Robyn, I was neutral on Talbot killing himself. Pasdar’s doing his best, but I am running out of patience with the character, and though the fact that Coulson used the Hydra indoctrination against him to keep him alive will have ramifications for their relationship, I don’t think Talbot should get to see his son again. Certainly not in this state. So, the sooner he goes out self-sacrificingly, the better. It would be a journey for him to be a credible voice arguing for Daisy and co’s innocence.
On the leadership front, Daisy made good enough decisions about divvying up the team, although putting herself in the facility with the gravitonium and Ruby, while being unable to use her powers was a bad call. Granted, she didn’t quite know about Ruby’s fixation with her, and thought she could be saved, but I Coulson could have been less fulsome in his praise, because May’s assessment from the previous ep still stands.
May being in a mood with Coulson all episode was highly entertaining, especially because some of her anger about his lack of communication was expressed by a refusal to communicate. Also, the violent scenes they warn us about each show ensued. So, he got benched. Some of the stuff he, Mack and Deke spouted was lazy sexism, some of it was funny, mostly Deke acting like a little boy with a crush and the whole lemons thing. That was a sad story when you thought about it. I should have kept a running list of who knows Deke has a crush on Daisy and who knows he’s Fitzsimmons’s grandchild.
Anyway, Hale is fuming about Ruby and willing to work with the (black) bloke from the Confederacy (messy choices, show) over the gravitonium.
The action, pace, and balance between snark and feels was mostly enough to keep me engaged in the whole ‘can they break the timeloop or are they doomed to repeat it all despite/because of their best intentions?’ thing, although there’s still a lot going on that I don’t care as much about as the show wants me to (hi, Creel).
Agent of SHIELD 5.17 All Roads Lead...
Quite involving, this.
Could Ruby have been more obnoxious? I think my irritation with her from the start of the episode bled through into my response towards the end which was ‘assassinate her!’ It dialled down to ‘why didn’t you bring your night-night gun so you could tranq her now, talk her down later?’ And then I both respected Yo-Yo for killing the annoying little brat, but could see that doing it in front of Ruby’s mother and the way she’d handled it – Yo-Yo gets the award for being the most screwed up by her visit to the future, and Mack is entitled to an ‘I told you so’ because she wasn’t ready to go out into the field, and I say that as someone who loathes self-righteous!Mack – were clearly bad choices. She did, after all, use the weapons that cut her arms off, so that’s closer to revenge than anything. But I cry no tears for Ruby and her pretty boy, no, not even as she laid out her mommy issues and jealousy of Daisy. Aw, your plan to give yourself superpowers didn’t work out like you intended, well, look before you leap, you pouty little sadist.
Ahem.
The whole levitation and voices in her head spoke of horror movie possession tropes.
I wished Fitzsimmons could have found a third way, other than to do things S-L-O-W-L-Y, but if they couldn’t bear to lose each other, they couldn’t, although their knowing about the inevitably of the world crumbling then (see Robyn’s drawing) made it a bit tragic, and a bit exasperating of them.
Robyn and Polly’s plights were far more wrenching, if I’m honest. The second I realised Talbot was going to go after them, I was very worried for Polly, as we know she dies in the timeloop. But with Robyn so often being unable to move, watching scenes she’s seen before, it was awful to think of her seeing people die in front of her, and though this was averted – Polly lives! so does Talbot! – Daisy really, really couldn’t promise their safety and endangered them by pulling them out for clues about Coulson’s whereabouts.
So long as it wasn’t in front of Robyn, I was neutral on Talbot killing himself. Pasdar’s doing his best, but I am running out of patience with the character, and though the fact that Coulson used the Hydra indoctrination against him to keep him alive will have ramifications for their relationship, I don’t think Talbot should get to see his son again. Certainly not in this state. So, the sooner he goes out self-sacrificingly, the better. It would be a journey for him to be a credible voice arguing for Daisy and co’s innocence.
On the leadership front, Daisy made good enough decisions about divvying up the team, although putting herself in the facility with the gravitonium and Ruby, while being unable to use her powers was a bad call. Granted, she didn’t quite know about Ruby’s fixation with her, and thought she could be saved, but I Coulson could have been less fulsome in his praise, because May’s assessment from the previous ep still stands.
May being in a mood with Coulson all episode was highly entertaining, especially because some of her anger about his lack of communication was expressed by a refusal to communicate. Also, the violent scenes they warn us about each show ensued. So, he got benched. Some of the stuff he, Mack and Deke spouted was lazy sexism, some of it was funny, mostly Deke acting like a little boy with a crush and the whole lemons thing. That was a sad story when you thought about it. I should have kept a running list of who knows Deke has a crush on Daisy and who knows he’s Fitzsimmons’s grandchild.
Anyway, Hale is fuming about Ruby and willing to work with the (black) bloke from the Confederacy (messy choices, show) over the gravitonium.
The action, pace, and balance between snark and feels was mostly enough to keep me engaged in the whole ‘can they break the timeloop or are they doomed to repeat it all despite/because of their best intentions?’ thing, although there’s still a lot going on that I don’t care as much about as the show wants me to (hi, Creel).
